The Safety Dance
by Angela Kip
Summary: "I find that you don't gain any weight as long as you burn calories by using your brain." However, even the world's three greatest detectives can't outsmart his food, and it isn't as though they teach you how to deal with stress at Wammy's House. Trigger warning for bulimia.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I haven't written anything in ages...but here is my latest attempt. Partly inspired by Men Without Hats's song "The Safety Dance." Happy birthday, L.**

**This story deals with bulimia and may trigger.  
**

**I do not own _Death Note_ or "The Safety Dance."**

* * *

A detective must know everything. This is one of the first things Watari informs L of after L makes his career choice at what Wammy's House deems the rather late age of seven years old. The child sits back in his chair, sipping at a cup containing more sugar cubes than tea.

"It would be impossible for any one human to know everything. I would be very surprised if Watari-sensei would not already be aware of this."

The words are simple, calculated. Of course it is impossible to know everything, but if L does – in fact – wish to become the greatest detective in the world (and of course he does), he needs to get pretty close.

_Shakespeare/Japanese grammar/capital cities/geometry/German vocabulary_

He will need to cover the history of the world. Where does one begin with a task like this?

Wammy's House has given him a good start on languages – the children here are all trilingual – but before long, he is learning so many that even if he spoke a different one each day of the week, he'd run out of days before running out of languages.

_Russian culture/American history/dancing/violin/please sit properly_

In the dim evening light, he crouches by the feet of an old man with a mustache, scanning encyclopedias for his next topic of study. When he becomes too tired to decipher the words, he slips on a pair of headphones and puts in a book on tape – a classic. Always a classic. He can quote passages from them that are long enough to put a college English professor to sleep.

_Psychiatry/assembly of a computer/percentages/numbers/calculations/always…_

He is speaking to the police through a microphone that garbles his speech. It is only in the hopes that they would never realize that Watari's consultant is eight years old.

"There is a sixty-two percent chance that our suspect has more than one accomplice."

The probability is much higher than that, of course, but a good detective is also a good liar.

_Body language/facial expressions/hand gestures/flirting/this makes no sense_

Perhaps the most important thing of all is that a detective must know how to appear as anything but. The classes he takes would sound odd to anyone else, but as Watari notes, much of L's career will likely be spent undercover. Of course, this also means that classes on quickly restraining or even fighting another person are a necessity. L's wide, dark eyes never reveal to anyone whether he likes or dislikes them.

_Aliases/fake histories/siblings that never existed_

He staggers to his feet fifteen minutes after having fallen asleep on the floor of a room empty aside from a computer and heads off to splash cold water on his face. It has been four days since he last slept, but he's getting used to it.

The other children have long since gone to bed, and the silence of the room is exactly how L likes it. Wrappers and empty plates have been "sorted" off to one side, making it clear that he's had far too much to eat just in the last hour. His jeans are baggy, but he still slips his thumb into his waistband repeatedly, trying to soothe his overfilled stomach. Still he is eating, one finger scraping raw cake batter out of a bowl and moving to his mouth, his eyes still trained on the screen as he works.

_It's been three weeks/going to scream if this isn't solved/eat/eat/eat_

He's always had a taste for sweets, like most children, but now he worships sugar. Eating helps, even when he is beyond the point of being full, when the movement of his finger from the bowl to his mouth and back is merely a reflex – and then a command to continue even as the taste begins to make him nauseous.

There is the sound of plastic on tile as it rolls off his lap, as he rests his head in his hands. His abdomen clenches painfully and he lies down, still with his knees curled up to his chest. His cheek gravitates towards the cool temperature of the floor.

_This is not helping/not solving the case/get up_

There is something ripping through his insides. L grits his teeth to keep from crying out. He doesn't want to wake anybody up, especially not Watari, who will just send him off to bed. And he can't sleep like the other children do, the very idea makes his skin crawl – all the wasted hours!

He drags himself to the bathroom and props himself up against the sink, the ill feeling rocketing up when he stands.

_Should be working/need to solve the case/keep the next target alive/maybe if I sleep it off/too uncomfortable to sleep/should be working_

Somehow, without a conscious decision to do it, he is kneeling in front of the toilet, shoving his first two fingers down his throat. Still being nauseous from overeating means that everything comes up quickly, and the only thought in his mind is that he has to stop feeling sick so that he can work.

_Clean up/fan on/rinse your mouth/hurry hurry hurry_

It is as if he has been through this a thousand times. The way his throat burns is making him cough, and after a long few seconds he gags and retches again from that alone.

_Everything is fine/you are fine/things are fine/F-I-N-E._

He's back in front of the computer, his hand clutching a glass of water. The tension is gone. He is a machine. He is working.

_A detective must/you must know everything_


	2. Chapter 2

He gives the incident hardly a second thought, passing it off as a temporary lapse of logical thought as a result of stress. He needs to focus every bit of his still-developing brain on education.

_Hungarian/Mandarin Chinese/American Sign Language/what language am I speaking right now?_

He is gripping something solid – a tennis racket. There is not really time to play tennis every Wednesday and Friday, but it is one of few things about which L will show how strongly he feels. It makes Watari get a fond look in his eyes and allow this form of recreation, on the condition that all players must wear shoes. The detective finds the loophole about socks being optional.

Naturally, after being titled the British Junior Champion, it's rather easy for him to win the games, but that doesn't mean he doesn't work as hard as possible. It is only to prevent all feeling from draining out of this, too. When the games are over, Watari leads him back inside, back to the little computer. And sometimes L hates it, but he learns to train himself otherwise.

_Can't be so bad/there are always doughnuts/shaking, sick_

In a classic example of what happens when the cases go unsolved for too long, a little boy is standing at the bathroom door. His eyes are disapproving as he takes in the scene before him, but it is not from L's ragged appearance. He is simply displeased that he has run into another person today.

"My apologies, Near."

L wrings a few minutes of conversation from him, just a few spoken words but that is enough, before the younger boy heads off to get Watari. L gets to his feet, chills wracking his body.

_Haven't kept anything down/three days/seventy-two percent chance I am ill/I have to work I have to I have to_

Colors flash in front of his eyes and he has to sit with his head between his knees for a moment.

"Watari," he rasps. He shivers when the older man places a hand on the back of his neck, more from the contact than from temperature.

_What is it/your throat?/nod._

Why would it matter? He's going right back to work anyway. He's incredibly dehydrated, so Watari hands him a box of ice lollies, tells him to call if he needs anything. L nods again.

_Eat/vomit/eat/vomit/eat/vomit/somebody is ripping my throat out_

He crashes on the floor of the bathroom as the bells chime for the children to get up. The night has been hell.

_Wake up/at least get to your own bed_

He is shaking all over. Watari is making him stop work, which signals a chance over ninety-eight percent that he is too sick to be doing anything at the moment.

_What time is it/two in the afternoon/I feel ill/you are._

He is lying in bed, shivering, pleading for more blankets. He feels helpless, like a small child. At least he's not working on any murder cases right now, thank god. Letting those go, even when he's this ill, would be as good as killing the people himself.

He sleeps, eight full hours, and registers the sound of footsteps. With difficulty, he forces himself back to consciousness, but only barely.

_Let me take your temperature/thermometer/cold_

The temperature registers, and Watari pulls him upright, just long enough to drink a glass of water. The sensation of something, anything, in his stomach is unpleasant, even if it's meant to soothe. There is an urge to digitally manipulate it back up, but he fights it.

Watari drops his voice to an almost inaudible level. "Do you think we need to do something about this?"

"I have a _case_ to solve," mutters the detective, still half-asleep.

_Not safe/everything will work out/not safe._

He wakes up again a few hours later, shakily makes his way back to the room where he works. He isn't certain how much Watari knows. He could figure it out, but there are more important things to understand right now, and there always will be.

One day leads into the next, some better than others. But the hell eventually breaks through the good days – it always does. He finishes a conversation with the Italian police and is about to enter the new data points and then

_door/yelling/flashing lights_

Someone bursts into the room, lies on the floor with his knees to his chest and his face hidden, fingers in his ears. L spins to face him.

_what are you doing here/it's loud/it's so loud_

The little boy is crying too hard to say anything more useful than that. L presses a button on his computer, screams above the noise for Watari.

_what's going on/we've had a suicide/what?_

"Where are you?"

His handler's voice is gentle but firm. "I think it would be best if you were not here to see this right now, L." The screen shuts off.

_little boy/crying/what happened_

He tries hard not to let the hysteria rub off on him – the noise bleeds in through the closed doors. The child can barely talk; it takes every effort to decipher him. He hears A's name, over and over, and then "alarm." There is a sixty-five percent chance that he is referring to triggering the alarm, what with the flashing lights, but L asks anyway. The boy's head bobs up and down.

"…Do you want me to hold you?" This is the common procedure for crying, isn't it? But the boy screams, cowers in the corner, hands up as if L is going to hit him.

There is an odd noise as L throws himself through the doors, and then he is out. The alarm is deactivated before he finds the source of the chaos, but he continues anyway, enters the room.

_hands/stopping me/I think you should leave now, L_

Just a glimpse of a limp body hanging from a rope, a chair standing nearby. A note has been hastily scribbled and discarded on the floor. There are less than ten letters on it in total:

_I/AM/NOT/L_

Said detective doubles over as though someone has physically hit him in the stomach. There are hands on his shoulders. He cries out, shuts his eyes to prevent any further visual input.

He is sitting in the warm room, sucking on a lollipop. The old mustached man pushes open the door; he is alone. It is safe here. Just safe enough. The man is sitting down, reciting the script that caretakers do when explaining death to people they view as their children, even if one of the said children is seventeen years old and the two (going on three) greatest detectives in the world:

_I'm sorry you had to see that/none of this is your fault/we still care about you_

"It would be illogical for me to assume that this is my fault."

"I know, but…"

He listens to Watari's meaningless words, twirls the lollipop between his teeth. He will be throwing it up later, along with anything else he can get his hands on.

* * *

This incident is a blip on the timeline of the Wammy's House and of L's life. The weeks and months fold over into years, meaningless. There is nothing but one case after the other, _steady steady_. At Watari's request, he eventually begins to work on this -

_sickness/addiction/lifestyle_

- that is taking over, but the case is and always will be more important. Days, weeks, he fights it back. In a matter of hours he can bring himself back to that mess lying on the bathroom floor without wanting to. It is the oddest of things.

_what's the date/November tenth/oh, past my birthday_

He is twenty-two now. These days he is too busy to remember trivial things like that. Today he is Eraldo Coil, yesterday he was L, and tomorrow he's scheduled to be a combination of L and Deneuve. It has been years since he was L Lawliet, the little boy from the Wammy's House, and there is a fifty-five percent chance that he has forgotten how to be that boy at all. This is also a trivial matter. Being L Lawliet is irrelevant to the task at hand.

_uphill curve/eighty-one percent/improvement._

He is twenty-three, they spend ten weeks in Ukraine, he doesn't throw up once. He is twenty-four, the cases are almost painfully interesting yet just a bit too easy, he has been fine for

_three weeks/no, six months/no…/it doesn't really matter_

a length of time that is irrelevant to the case. He has just picked up a new one and is getting ready to speak. At this moment, Watari is standing in front of a G8 meeting about the recent heart attack victims, and L is in the room where it is safe, almost too safe. He leans forward and speaks to the microphone.

"This case cannot be solved without the full cooperation of the ICPO."

_lie._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: A****s hinted by the end of the last chapter, the rest of this fic will contain spoilers, eventually up to episode 25 of the anime or chapter 58 of the manga.**

**I had a bit of difficulty determining how to set the pacing for this chapter. Constructive criticism would be much appreciated.**

* * *

Perhaps one of the best things about being L is that he can waltz freely into any case he's interested in and ignore the ones he isn't. He's never stopped, never questioned. Using a criminal, even one on death row, as bait for someone like Kira would get most people fired, but when L does it, nearly the entire Kanto region of Japan is glued to their TV screens, watching with fascination as Lind L. Tailor dies live on camera. And like any good detective, L allows himself to be shocked and forces himself to recover quickly. He's talking to a murderer.

_I assure you L is real/I do exist/try to kill me!_

Behind the calm tone and the hidden face, he's intensely aware of how many people are waiting for him to die here. To be truthful, a small part of him is as well. Graduates of Wammy's House aren't exactly known for having long lives, after all.

It feels just slightly odd to say, "Well, Kira, it seems that you can't kill me after all."

_I will hunt you down/I/I am justice!_

He sends the Japanese police down this trail and that one, working behind the scenes in the meantime. Unknown to them, the FBI are working undercover amongst them, the police spying on the police.

And then, just as quickly, they're not. An NPA agent scoffs.

"I knew all along we couldn't trust that guy."

Of course L hasn't been able to avoid it: he hears them talking, not just the police but also the newscasters, the talk shows, the public

_The NPA/the FBI/L/incompetent_

and it forces his hand into lying to himself, saying he's ready to show his face and be known as L. The three greatest detectives in the world don't get anxious, so he shows no hesitation. Neither does Watari.

"The fact that I'm here is proof that you've won Ryuzaki's trust."

_lie_

How can Soichiro Yagami possibly believe that when L is putting cameras in the chief's own house and watching his family's every move? He is moving forward. Watari told him for so many years that a detective must know everything, and part of knowing everything is knowing exactly how to get as close to your suspect as possible. Even if that means going to the To-Oh entrance exams. L supposes he's grateful that he doesn't have to handicap himself to avoid being the only one who gets a hundred percent in every section; Light is clearly intelligent enough to do it.

"You there…" The examiner is already calling attention to him. "Student number 162. Sit properly."

Light Yagami turns around.

* * *

_I want to tell you/I'm L._

The detective can feel Light's, Kira's, frustration radiating off of him, and it's almost ridiculously satisfying. And it staves off the stress that makes him sick, because now he's finally getting somewhere.

They go from one of the best tennis matches L's played in years to the coffee shop to the hospital, hardly taking a break to discuss something other than Kira. The detective can see how impatient Light is to find a way to clear his name, which won't happen because _Light Yagami is Kira_, it just has to be true.

And then just as quickly, they're getting nowhere, even with an extra man soon to be joining the investigation team. Japan watches as an officer from the NPA collapses in front of Sakura TV, Kira having killed him with no more information than a glimpse of his face, and then a van bursts through the doors. The compensation for the loss of Ukita and some much unneeded stress on Soichiro is four tapes and some high probabilities concerning a second Kira. A good detective never stops to wonder if it's worth it.

It is, of course, no coincidence that he asks Light to play the part of the first Kira, and it's clear that the teenager knows it. L has to roll around probabilities in his mind when he sees the part of the proposed speech that says, "You are free to kill L."

"If you don't take out that part," he says tonelessly, "I'll die." And Light laughs, says that he must have gotten carried away. The older of the two silently adds a few percentages onto Light's probability of being Kira.

_confirm our identities/showing our shinigami to each other/shinigami/shinigami_

A man hits the floor with a thud, having fallen out of his chair from the force of his scream. The great L is breaking because every new development seems to bring him further from the solution, not closer to it.

_Light-kun/my very first/friend/lie_

He works through the night, powered by sugar and tea alone; as a child, he hated it when Watari had him practice this skill, and only now does he see how invaluable it is. He almost pities the rest of the task force, all of whom waste so much time every day doing something as pointless as _sleeping._

By mid-afternoon everything is in place, and finally, he heads back to the campus of To-Oh University.

* * *

The detainment of Misa Amane is rather simple to coordinate, the only awkward slip in the case coming when he sneaks her cell phone away from her and

_somebody just touched my butt!/this is an outrage_

somebody's laughing at him in the back of the crowd. Light and Soichiro are easier to detain, what with both of them volunteering for it, but in the long term it only kicks the case into the wrong gear, moving it rapidly towards the point where the mental tricks are ridiculous.

_Mr. Stalker/you pervert!/I'm not Kira/get me out of here!_

It doesn't matter. The murders have stopped, so the answer is clear, and just the way L knew it would be.

For two weeks, and then Matsuda bursts through the door, an alarmed look on his face.

_Two weeks' worth of criminals/murdered all at once_

"Yeah," says a tired-sounding Aizawa. "Kira is back."

L nods, chewing on his tongue. After informing the chief, he presses Light and Misa again, trying to get one of them to talk or show a sign, any sign, that they know Kira is on the move again.

Light, as expected, doesn't take it well. After he begins to get frantic, asking if his eyes look like the eyes of someone who's lying, L severs the connection and speaks to the woman he knows _must_ be the second Kira.

"Are you ready to tell me who Kira is or not?"

"I wish I knew," she says, "but I don't. Because if I did, I'd thank him..."

And the more L hears, the less he understands. He's sitting in the bathroom again, undoing the locks on the cabinets. Chocolates overflow from the confined space and hit the floor. One wrapper after another tears open, and he hardly chews the sweets, feeling his throat ache as it fights to get everything down with hardly a pause. Vaguely, he's aware that he's snapping, and

_stop/Watari won't like it/stop_

he's already so far gone that it would be difficult to even limit the damage done. He doesn't even try. The room spins, and for a moment he's aware of nothing except a pain in his abdomen and he retches, forces himself to his feet seconds before his stomach rejects everything he's just eaten. Grasping the edge of the sink, he sucks in a breath. Dizziness and nausea come in sharp waves, and L realizes, as he did years ago, that there is no way anybody can work while feeling this sick. His throat tightens around the intrusion of his fingers, making him gag. The thought comes to him that he's going to have to clean the sink, which is enough to make him lose the rest of his stomach's contents.

The doorknob jiggles before being promptly unlocked, so that Watari walks in on a pitiful sight: a world-famous young man bent almost double, clutching the edge of the sink, surrounded by chocolate wrappers.

Because out of all the people L can never hope to hide anything from, Watari is at the top of the list. (It numbers two.)

_sun/cases/waiting/solving/sugar/machine_

Aizawa knuckles down on the fiftieth day of confinement, reminding L that there is hardly a point to confining the suspects and Mr. Yagami any longer. So finally, reluctantly, he sets his plan in motion. The protests to a mock execution are so loud and so quick that they make his ears ring, but Soichiro agrees to it, desperate to prove Light's innocence.

Anybody else who ordered a man to hold a gun to his own son's head and then sat and watched the whole scene unfold on camera would get in enough legal trouble to almost be forced to emigrate from Japan, but not L. Here is the great detective, watching a teenage boy beg for his life, the detective hoping and praying to prove guilt. And somehow, he knows he won't be able to yet, but it's only a matter of time.

_this is L/snapping._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Apparently it's been more than six months since I updated this...I never was very good at keeping my own deadlines. I estimate three chapters (more or less) until the fic is done, as there's a two-month slot in canon after Light and L fight where almost nothing happens. Bits and pieces are already scattered around my giant file of fanfic, so I'll see when I manage to finish those.**

* * *

One hundred and five links between them. How strange to think that until Kira is captured, however long it may take, Light will never be farther than one hundred and five links away. The teenager is obviously bothered by this thought, and for once L is honest:

_I'm not doing this because I want to/quite the opposite, in fact_

Light looks as though he is contemplating chewing his own arm off, especially the first time they have to deal with the awkward nature of meals and bathroom trips (it's not like L can leave him alone for even a moment, after all). By one AM he's all but throwing a fit about the chain not being long enough to allow for two beds. He doesn't, of course, because he's trying to reduce his Kira percentage, but L can see how hard he's trying.

Well, it's not like Light can expect to be catered to.

The detective hasn't slept in five days, so once he's sure Light is asleep, he slips into a practiced state of mind somewhere between awake and sleeping. It took years for him to develop it, and it paid off. At the slightest movement or sound, he jerks awake, hyperaware of the world around him. By the time Light begins to stir, L is wide awake, and nobody (save Watari, who's monitoring the cameras) can tell he was ever asleep in the first place.

_speak/sunlight/waiting/drain_

* * *

One of the first things Watari pointed out when L consulted with him on building the new task force headquarters was that it would be safer. It's difficult to remember what _safe_ means when you're the world's three greatest detectives, but L is sure that somewhere, hidden in a spiderweb of synonyms, it connects to the word _good_.

_cameras/security/monitoring/smarter_

_better/faster_

There is an eighty-eight percent chance that his current state will go downhill if the Kira case is not solved within another month. Focusing on percentages like this is not an especially wise choice, but when he has a few minutes of downtime here and there, it's where his mind goes.

_no/come on/no/no/no_

Watari doesn't like it. He's going to need to learn to stop.

* * *

There is no way to please Misa Amane. The first day in the new headquarters when she drags Light (and therefore L) out on a date, after a bit of silence, she pronounces it "the lamest date she's ever been on."

L's head is spinning from too much continuous time spent alert. "…Are you going to eat that piece of cake?"

She scoffs, tells him that "cake makes you fat." Detectives do not roll their eyes.

"Actually, I find that you don't gain any weight as long as you burn calories by using your brain," he says calmly.

_LIE/shut up shut up shut up_

Misa seems offended, but at the same time she thinks she has him, offering the cake in exchange for leaving the two of them alone. L thinks he sees a glance from Light that pleads otherwise. Either way, he sighs, explains again that he'd have to watch and that there's no way around it. Finally Light looks over, lips pursed.

"I thought moving here was supposed to help us to catch Kira." This is obviously a plug to go and look around said building, but L needs to work, and Light knows it. "But since we've been here, you don't seem all that motivated to me."

"Not motivated?" L repeats, and muses for a moment. "Not really. I'm actually kind of depressed. All this time I thought you were Kira."

The more he explains, the more Light's face contorts and the more he argues. Why is he getting so upset? L sinks back into the couch sadly.

"It's just a waste of time."

Light stands up.

_impact/pain_

"Perhaps I phrased that in the wrong way." Once the vertigo effect subsides, L turns his wide eyes on the teenager. "It would be pointless for us to make a move, so we shouldn't even bother."

But the more he talks, the more riled up Light gets and the less L understands. Is he the greatest actor in all of Japan or is he genuinely not Kira? No, no, he has to be. Don't think that way.

"I understand," L says, having only half-listened to Light's argument. "But still, whatever the reason…"

_lock ankles/spin/eye on target/make contact_

"…an eye for an eye, my friend."

From someplace above this room, he is watching the whole scenario pan out, calm in the midst of the storm. Watari was right: drill something firmly enough into a child's head and he will never walk away from it. Of course, L knows this could also be exploited. Watari wouldn't do that.

_drill it into your own head/you're looking at Kira/and…_

The telephone ringing forces him to slip back into his own skin within the physical world, and he stops mid-fight to pick it up.

"Misa-misa's number one in 'Eighteen' magazine's reader popularity poll!" chirps a voice. "And get this…"

The phone clatters down. That was a distraction, a way to get them to stop fighting, and L knows it.

"Matsuda's acting stupid again."

Two boys march out of the room, footsteps neat and precise, as if this is a vision he's seeing. He has failed again, miserably, in his role as a detective.

* * *

In the semi-darkness of the room that night, he pours tiny chocolate candies from their packages. They spill out expectantly. He remembers these from when he was very young, only a few months after Watari took him in.

_candies lined up/tiny rows/are you ready for your lesson?_

Crouching in his seat with a page of geometry in front of him, watching two steady hands open a package of candies and line them up neatly on the desk. First thing in the morning, having gone without breakfast, the sight makes him twitch. Every missed problem means one less candy he will get to eat. He stares at them as though they might vaporize without warning and leave him still hungry and unfocused.

And now here he's back here, two decades later, ripping open package after package of the same chocolate candies. He rearranges them with a deftness to his fingers

_lines/patterns/shapes/pictures_

as though it will do something to help. He knows where this is going. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny sugar disks now, spinning at his move, and the noise they make is so loud that he's sure he's going to wake the suspect sleeping beside him.

He surrenders to the inevitable: closes his eyes, opens his mouth. The volume of sugar makes his throat cry for water, but there's not time. Each minute is one minute closer to the time of his death, which was firmly fixed from the moment of his birth.

_do not break/do not leave these patterns/do not stop in any way or…_

He's not quite sure what comes after _or_. The detective curls his toes in silent discomfort as he goes back over what he said to Light about being depressed. In the back of his mind, a little voice chimes in a common stereotype about everyone with an eating disorder also suffering from depression.

_this is not/an eating disorder/just a way of thinking/Quiet._

A container, black on all sides, slides out from a compartment in the bed. Unsnap lid, regurgitate chocolate, replace lid, hide container again until there will be a way to dispose of its contents without waking Light.

The lights in the room flicker just for a second with a clear message: _Stop disobeying your handler._

"My apologies, Watari," the detective murmurs, head down. He moves the laptop from its position on the side table to rest on his stomach. He can work again.

L reopens his documents and thinks about the days where he was solving a few math problems for chocolate candies.


End file.
